Report: BlackBerry losing sales to Nokia Lumia devices in Australia, paints a bleak picture for the struggling Canadian manufacturer

Heading into the last quarter in 2013, it is becoming increasingly clear that Windows Phone is now solidifying itself as the third alternative for smartphones (see the latest IDC report). While sales are still miles behind iOS and Android, Windows Phone as a platform is finally being treated more equally by retailers and consumers.

Part of that apparent victory, in typical Microsoft fashion, is due to missteps by Redmond’s competitors. Years ago, BlackBerry (then called RIM) basically owned the enterprise market. Fast forward to 2013 and with BlackBerry 10 on the market with a handful of new devices, it’s becoming clear that it’s just not enough to regain that momentum.

The site IT Wire has performed some store-checks for the new BlackBerry Q10 and Z10—two devices we actually own and occasionally use ourselves. The site tried to get a statement from Australia’s telco’s Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone but received no comment about those BlackBerry sales. Not hindered, IT Wire then spoke with Harvey Norman, Optus and Telstra franchises for their opinions on BlackBerry’s prospects.

The answers were interesting not because almost everyone has reported slow to no sales of BlackBerry devices but because Windows Phone, specifically the lower cost Lumias, are evidently what shoppers are looking for instead. A Telstra franchisee reported this to IT Wire:

“We don’t get a lot of large corporate clients (100+ handsets) but we do have quite a lot of 20-100 handset clients because of our location. They have not been buying the Z10 or Q10. Or the iPhone either because of the rumoured new models. When a contract is up - as so many BlackBerry contracts are - Windows Phones are very popular as replacements. We cannot sell Android into corporates”.

Granted, a handful of store checks and franchisee owners does not equal a definitive account of BlackBerry versus Windows Phone, but this trend of customers preferring the latter over the former is becoming more frequent.

While it’s a shame that BlackBerry, who is now considering various options including selling the company, appears to be on the ropes, we always knew that carriers (and increasingly consumers) were not very open to four options for mobile OSs. BlackBerry still has a lot of valuable patents and some creative talent on board, but if these reports keep favoring Windows Phone, BlackBerry’s future is not looking positive at all.

I've become quite the Nokia fan. They are bringing such serious mojo to the WP table. And the 520/521 has been pure genius, showing the market that WP can run butter smooth on budget hardware like nothing else out there right now.

Agreed. As supporters of an underdog platform it doesn't really befit us. It's a bit like two men on a frozen lake. One is laughing at the other that's fallen down.
Let's keep working forward and let the other platforms sling the mud.

Their is no english equivalent for the german word "Schadenfreude". I've seen it used on U.S. cable television more than once, I assume for that reason.
It means "to take pleasure in someone else's plight".
The literal translation of the individual words would be:
Schaden = Harm/Damage
Freude = Joy/Delight
But as you can see that literal translation doesn't match its actual meaning.

Their not dead yet, and we don't know what they have planned, or what the future holds... We don't want to start sounding like iDroid fans when WP came out.. Some of the more intelligent ones have their feet in their mouths right now..

I love the burst of flavour in recent times in regard to the mobile phone market and the competition.
With firefox OS, sailfish OS and Tizen entering the market soon, we'll be spectators to an even greater showcase of mobile capability. After all, the competition is good for consumers :)

Or, we'll be spectators to an even greater showcase of mobile fragmentation and security holes. Honestly, what's going to do Android in is not its competition, but the fact that companies will start forking off their own flavors of the OS and fragment the user base like Linux on the PC.

95% of your buyers couldn't tell you what bb7, or playbook is.. They are just sheep, and are interested in only what's popular which is GS devices, and iPhones... You could show the majority of them a NL1020, show them the start screen, and tell them it's running the latest version of Android, and they would believe you.. You should try it sometime just to see what they say... LOL❕

Yeah,, that Z10 was relatively horrible on the hardware side.. It doesn't even have a finished look, and feel to it, and they wanted $199 on contract❔... Plus it looks like a cheap iPhone clone, and I'm not saying this just to be a hater,, but its true... I was actually rooting for BB, but it's hard to feel bad for them when their efforts are so lackluster.

Part of the reason BB is so big in enterprise, is because its the most secure. Companies pay premium money because of their servers that are used. Its not the OS itself necessarily, but the backend servers BB uses and sells to enterprise customers . The other reason is because people were afraid to leave the physical keyboards, but mostly security.

Only when someone posts "OMG, you suck it!!!!" 15 times, spams us with "First!" or attacks the writers. I'm tired of this juvenile nonsense. Comments are for discussion of the topic by adults. It's a privilege, not a right. ;)

When you think about the mindless "only Nokia" attitude (don't get me wrong I love them), and the inability to talk about the merits of anything non WP without being designated a troll, I think I agree... We could use more maturity ^^

I'll try to be more mature,, but I can't promise anything.. I know that I contribute quality comments for the most part, so I feel as though I can go off the deep end from time to time... Heck, from time to time I have to moderate some of these bozo's myself.. Like that dude Mroofienblockm.. He's walking a thin line with me❕ That crazy stunt he pulled the other day topped the cake. I can be a idiot at times, but this guy has lost his mind... I know he's on somebody's hot list..

BB should be ashamed of themselves, they thought they can control enterprise, but when the consumer market is merging with enterprise, essentially the market is becoming the same as more companies go BYOD. If consumers dont want BBs anymore, then BB will continue to lose market share in enterprise. It is a dated tech and according to my companies experience, bb10 very confusing.

BB doesnt have much left, people continue to think consumers want a physical keyboard, they are some that do, but it is clear the mass market isn't really looking for physical keyboard. The small niche market that are isn't big enought of sustain thye company and to think people would buy a q10 at 199? a bit delusional.

Discovery in BB10 is certainly not easy...it's a confusing OS. Once you know it, it's powerful. But it's just not flashy enough for the consumer market. I give BB credit for knocking a whole OS and new hardware out in 18 months--they are a small company. But it's just not enough.

Why bother trying to learn a confusing OS when you can do just as much and catch on quicker with an android/iphone/windows phone.

That is what our president thinks and a few other users that got ATT demos of q10s think . Our users are long time BB users, and we are doing a roll out of upgrades of 650 phones, out of like 50 that i've sent request, no BB10 orders. Just to give people an idea of our demographic, we 400 bb devices out of the 650 devices int he company, after i go through all the upgrades, i dont think we will hit 50 bb10 orders. They all want s4s now, even the iphone users.
My company is just one example, but i dont think it will be too far off from what we see in the mass market. The phoen isnt compelling enough to switch to and too confusing for those that just want to pick up and play.

I was a blackberry user for 5 years and switched to the 920 while i waited for the new blackberries. I've been a huge Zune user for years so it was an obvious choice. It's really hard because i constantly still pull for Blackberry. I wished Microsoft bought them out and combined several of the features.) BBM & notifications are much better on blackberry that frustrate me on windows.

I had never thought of this but now that you mention it I believe that you're right. Nokia wouldn't get distracted by trying to assimilate entire software into all of MS's products and services like MS is doing with Skype.
Nokia would be much better at focusing on mobile only and making sure to implement features in a way that makes sense.

Well something to think about is if elop leaves Nokia for MS position and Nokia adopts android OS because of it maybe then MS can buy out BB? Then they'll have there own phone hardware company and plenty more patents to use up. I dunno. A thought I guess.

MSFT contract was completed in Feb. '11 right? Certainly they will begin negotiations to extend the agreement before the current one expires. Wonder if we'll see Nokia get a little more from Redmond seeing as they've clearly demonstrated their ability to deliver...

I don't think Microsoft need to buy Blackberry to improve notifications, they just need to improve notifications; which hopefully is coming in GDR3. As for BBM - well there's plenty of alternatives to that these days, but considering they've now (almost) ported it to iOS and Android it's not like it's exclusive to BB hardware anymore, so they could as easily port it to WP as well without any input from MS.
So really I just don't see any need for anyone to buy them now. Amazon I guess if they wanted to move into mobile, or someone like Huawei or ZTE if they wanted to bolster their US & European presence, just like Lenovo did when they bought out IBM's hardware business. But Microsoft or Nokia, what would they gain, a platform with less marketshare than WP; it's just dead weight. Even if they went WP, really would that gain MS anything? They need Samsung, Sony, HTC to take WP serious, BB is lost. And for Nokia, they build better devices than BB and have great engineers, what would they gain from BB?

im on the side that notifications will not be in gdr3, at the earliest, it will be in blue next year. That is my guess based on some of the upgrades for gdr1,2 so far. There hasn't been anything monumental in terms of features, just some fixes and some additions. I could be wrong, but i dont recall a full on feature added in the first two updates.

My own experience is by no means definitive, but I've never seen a BlackBerry "in the wild" in Australia. Maybe I hang out in the wrong corporate circles, as it's always IPhone (60% marketshare?), then Android I see most. The only people with WP are people I already know! :P

Im sure my dad is waiting for his BB phone to die so he can get a new one and better! haha. he calls it "trash" everytime we talk about it.
its shocking to see how bad a company can be ran after years of years. now RIM wants BBM in iOS and Android. and it makes me wonder like... How do they want to save the company? being a messenger company like whatsapp or kik?
but no RIM is lost, BB is bad and not many people would want it over other phones. in this case im glad nokia is benefiting from BB fail.

At least it's not for lack of trying. I've seen in-store displays everywhere here in the US - cell phone stores, malls, airports, Costco... BB has gone all out to get people to buy it. If people don't, at least they did what they could.

Then it makes it doubly tragic that they planned to expose BB10 everywhere but failed to make an alternate plan in case it failed. They should have developed concurrently and in secret back then a phone running either WP or Android or both. Now it's too, too late to start anew. Heins has been hailed as a good CEO - I don't think he is if he failed to hedge the possible failure of BB10.

I would love to have a Blackberry as my second phone! They look so much fun. Android is laggy and iOS boring, but BB looks fun. I hope it'll still be up and running when I'm at the point that I can have two phones.

No daniel didn't deleted my comment because he know it is true.
No features means
-No File manager manager(which is one of the most demanded features (Proof -http://windowsphone.uservoice.com/forums/101801-feature-suggestions )
-No notication centre
No auto rotate screen on/off
No way to download video and integrate with video gallery

List is keep going dude.........and all I heard it is coming in next update. Nothing else

Even if WP8 doesn't have all features Android has, it still has features idiot... And my Samsung Ativ S doesn't lag ever. Same for my friend's and girlfriends 920's. So if you have a bad 925, don't fault WP.

I was happy to turn in my company blackberry this year when we adopted Good and BYOD and now only need to carry my 920. Pretty much everyone is following suit and selecting their ios/droid/wp devices for work usage.

Informative article. Got a kick out of the line "We cannot sell Android into corporates".

I have pushed for WP handsets at my work and was quite surprised to hear the Telstra rep advise against continued use of Blackberry.. needless to say, I've had a big influence in mobile devices and we are now trialing a couple 520 and 925 models.

Just last week we stopped ordering BlackBerry. We tested BES10 and BB10 since February and are extremely frustrated. We've decided to switch to Windows Phone 8. We still don't have an MDM solution in place and are using ActiveSync right now. But our rollout is going to be slow. We hope to have a MDM solution in place by late September.
Unfortunately our carrier is Bell Mobility. They refuse to carry Nokia devices. We're stuck with the Samsung Ativ S. It's a great phone but Samsungs lack of marketing on the device leaves us wondering if we'll be able to buy them much longer. And Bell Mobility has also stopped selling HTC 8X. Their marketing of Windows Phone is extremely lacking and we're thinking of switching our Corporate account to Telus or Rogers because of it.

I have both Q10 and the 920. They both have their ups and downs. Was from an Android (very long time). Never warmed up to iOS. Unlike others, even ones from Crackberry, who would like to see each other's platform die, for I don't know what bragging rights, I wish all companies the best. BYOD means freedom for everyone. I like my Lumia because nothing beats the eye candy. But my Lumia is one of those with quick-draining battery. Still love it though. BB is not too shabby either. Both are great!

Tha's Great!! :) Also, this was Expected :) Because, in India, where 3G recharge for 1 GB Data is for Rs. 250, Blackberry (BBM + DATA + Streaming) package comes for Rs. 494. Can you believe it?? Who's gonna use a 2G handset where they are providing costly services ... 3G is very costly in BB! Around 1000 Rs. :/ Please tell me a reason for using Blackberry! BBM? Mail? I've got Whatsapp, mail, apps, big screen, nokia music, xbox, Great Apps :)
Blackberry is going down because they do not have CEO like Elop ;)

The only reason I like WP8 is because it's fresh and different. Android and BB 10 are just iOS clones with a few enhancements that take away fluidity and use ability. BB offers nothing new, different, or elegant. Their hardware is two years old and nothing cutting edge in materials.